7 Responses to Map Monday: Population Change 2000 – 2010

This is about the only article I have seen that addresses the fact that “the magnitude of decline on the Northside offset gains elsewhere.” Just think of how much Minneapolis grew in downtown, along the greenway, warehouse District, Mill District, etc. we should have grown. But all of that gain in housing units was offset by the out of control demolition of housing units on the Northside. But I get it – it is more fun to talk about sexy new developments than to talk about what is happening on the other end of the equation on the Northside. But those numbers put the reality in our faces that the problems of the Northside affect the entire city.

So very true: my hometown of Columbus likes to boast about much much and how fast the city is growing: a whopping 800,000 people. What they gloss over is the fact that this is largely due to annexation of land and suburban sprawl. The city is over 220 sq. mi. and so a good 3/4 of that population lives in what looks like Woodbury, Brooklyn Center/Park and Burnsville. What you don’t see are the tens of thousands of residents fleeing several of our North equivalent with population losses of %20-15% or so every decade.

Minneaplois has been doing much better than just about any other city as far as its ratio of healthy vs unhealthy neighborhoods, but that doesn’t mean we should be complacent and it seems we are. North desperately needs to be addressed: now. To allow it to far apart further guarantees the dilapidation of neighboring areas that are just hanging on.Lind-Bohanon (catchy name) was the only area in North to gain a population and certainly no where near enough to compensate for losses. The city should assist in a plan to improve the area from there downward: notice that just south of there that while there are population losses that they’re much more minor than when you get even further south to Lowry and Broadway.

What North needs are destinations and while Victory 44, Tootie’s and Lowry Cafe are all excellent, there needs to be at least as many quality destinations that require both hands to count. That is how you attract visitors and in turn badly needed new residents. Perhaps a more aggressive zoning policy to allow residential uses converted to commercial could help? Seems to work in Uptown with Namaste and that taco joint whose name escapes me.

The old Wafana’s market was a great street car era pedestrian oriented building with a charming facade on Lyndale Ave N that had a nice parcel along with it that included a small side parking lot and room for gardens. It was owned by CPED. A very serious and well financed Northside couple with a solid business plan, one with an MBA, wanted to purchase the building to begin organic gardening and a catering service with the hopes to grow into being able to expand to a sit down restaurant. But the city and neighborhood group voted to demolish it instead. Why? Wafana’s had been a bad place. Even though these guys were not Wafana’s, they believed they would fail and the next owner would be bad like Wafana’s was. I saw this same logic applied to a duplex. A well vetted, well known Northsider wanted to purchase and rehab a CPED owned duplex and live there herself, renting the other unit. CPED and the neighborhood group said “No.” Their logic? She might be a fine owner, but what about the next owner??? We since have dubbed this sort of “stinking thinking” as Wafana’s syndrome. I made a complaint with NCR after that meeting that the neighborhood group was violating their Citizen Participation Contract with the city. My complaint was validated and bylaws had to be revised. CPED had way too much Neighborhood Stabilization money earmarked for demolition and demolition was an easy way for them to spend that money and feel that they were “doing something” and “making a change.” This didn’t “just happen.” It very much is the direction CPED took the Northside. Because of this population loss, in the process of redistricting, the Northside lost a seat of representation on the City Council (not that Diane was worth anything anyhow).

I would disagree with the assertion that most city land is still becoming less dense in any meaningful fashion, tan and light blue are really treading water, and are all over the suburbs as well as streetcar areas of the cities. Take Highland Park in StP for example, there’s areas of both tan and periwinkle, it seems more like neighborhoods are turning over and bringing in young families or losing kids to college more than losing households or significant population.

That being said, Near North Minneapolis and other areas are being fled almost with their population swings.

So, it’s obvious from the national map that the *first order trend* is the same one we’ve had for hundreds of years: complete disappearance of the genuine rural “farmstead” population. Minnesota and Wyoming show some slight trend counter to that, but just *look* at the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, downstate Illinois, western Pennsylvania, west Texas, West Virginia, etc… the rural areas are bleeding population.

Both cities and their suburbs, and even “pseudo-rural” outer suburban areas are getting the population gain.

In general, new-ring suburbs continue to be popular, downtowns are popular, and older-ring suburbs are not doing so well.

There’s some oddly specific stuff happening at the neighborhood level within cities. I’m not surprised that the census tract near the airport is losing all its population. But a lot of the rest of it is odd. The declines in the Northside of Minneapolis are large enough to need explanation, but I see that previous comments have provided them.